Saturday, October 11, 2008

My cat isn't feeling very good. He's been looking "off" for a little while and I wormed him with a general wormer and it just hasn't done anything. He also hasn't been speaking to me since my dads accident. Apparently he can forgive me for working fair and being gone during the day, but being totally gone so much is inexcusable. Last week, after getting to lay eyes on him again, I gave him a heavier duty wormer to see if that perked him up. So far nothing.
Last night I had Greg catch him and bring him to me. He flat won't come at all when I call him. He used to come, sit, and lay down on comand. Now he won't sit in the same room with me.
He's thin. He's puky looking. I had Greg run the other cats past me and they all look fine and dandy. Mine, half dead. So I opened him a cat of wet food expecting him to dove in and chew my arm off while I fought to open the damn lid (easy open my ass). For one thing, I had to open the can while not losing hold of the cat, he was not wanting to stay with me for anything. I think he holds a grudge. After I gave him the bowl he just looked at it. The other cats where swarming like sharks at a seal kill. He's not impressed. I finally coaxed him into eating it. It was no small feat, but thankfully didn't require me to taste test.
Tonight he got more canned food and hairball stuff and nutri-cal. He acts like he has sore teeth, so I inspected his teeth. I dont think that helped my standing on the grudge list for sure, but they looked ok. No abcesses that I could see and I pushed and proded quite a bit.
He keeps this up and I may have to resort to taking him to the vet. Where I'm sure they will tell me he has a upper respitory infection because I think that's a standard answer for all generally ill cats. In the mean time we're going to give him canned food once a day (they have dry all day long) and hairball and nutri-cal him as often as I can get him to stand still to be caught.
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In other news we went to Ross today. I hate Ross. I like Ross's prices, but I hate that store and 92% of the people who shop there. 100% of the people who work there are morons, and I know the manager. Bleh and ick.

But I scored a new wallet, 4 baking sheets (making my family hopeful I will use them), a steamer pot for pasta (making my family hopeful I will cook), and a few shirts for my spoiled child and rotten husband. I tried to talk myself into a ceramic baking dish with lid and serving rack, but it was red. If it had been blue or green or that lovely "honey dipped" brown, we'd have had one. They had a big ceramic honey dipped brown roasting pan with inner rack that if it would have had a lid we would have had it. Alas nothing was the right combo so I left the ceramic there. Probably for the best, my family is kinda hard on ceramic.
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Right now my floor is sitting with flea killer powder on it that I need to vacumm up. I may let it sit there all night and do it in the AM.

I'm making cinnimon rolls tomorrow. My dough in the fridge so I need to pull it out to rise in the AM. I have to cheat and use someone elses dough. For some reason (we think its the salt) I kill dough quicker than shit that needs to rise. I can't even make canned bisquits that you pop out of a can. If I touch them they won't rise. My husband thought I was kidding until he watched for himself. That is one item I never have to worry about him asking me to make. LOL

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Sitting on the heat

Literally. I'm sitting on a heating pad because my legs feel like blocks of ice.

The rest of me is sweating. I've checked my circulation several times to make sure they (my legs) aren't turning blue or anything. There seems to be no reason for this. Just asshole legs with heating issues.

My ribs are feeling better, thanks for asking. Keeping them wrapped tight overnight seemed to help alot, as I'm sure did putting the ice on it last night. Thanks Greg!

We need to go shopping tonight but my feet are aching they are so cold.

Paychecks are trickling in, as are the bills. WOWZO. The new herds sure drove up costs. Thank god they pay well. One bill alone drove up 3x the pre-new herds cost. And lets not talk about UPS the ass fuckers.
We looked into other options but they pretty much have me over a barrel holding my ass.

Ok.. Brrrr......

Summer fun with Mom

Idea stolen from Poppycedes because all original ideas found here revolve around... OUCH MY F_ING RIBS HURT. Yes yes my friends my seemingly month affliction of a pinched nerve in my ribs is back. *insert much moaning and cussing here*

When I was a kid my mom would toss us kids in the car and just head out. Often she'd get to the end of a road and say, "Left or Right." If it was at night and we were "out for a drive" then we'd head out into the hills and explore dirt roads and driveways. We saw tons of wild critters and one of my foster brothers and I would sit in the back of my mom's old T-Bird and call out... OH there's an Owl, OH there's a deer, OH there's a skunk. I'm not sure I was much over 4 or 5 at the time. Once, on one outing, we hit a locked gate, on a very narrow dirt road with a drop off on one side and a cliff on the other. My mom had to turn that boat of a car around. I think it was close to a 55 thousand point turn. The whole time my brother and I sat on the floorboard in the back saying, "We're going to die, if we die, you feed the dogs ok.""If we die, you can have my baseball cards." Until my mother told us to "shut the hell up already no one was going to die, unless she killed us." So then we whispered.

Another crazy trip was going to Oregon for a night out. We drove up one day, stayed the night and spent the next day coming home doing touristy stuff. We had just walked through our front door when the phone rang and it was my Nana. My mother and her were talking and my sister and I heard her say, "sure we'll come get you. Umm, about 3 hours." So we hopped right back in the car and headed back out the oppisate direction. Right at the end of the road this time.

My mother always took us to the river every summer. She'd load up all the kids who were staying with us and load ice chests and boxes and cars and out we'd go. Sometimes just for a day away playing in the river, sunbathing and swimming. Sometimes for a week at the river camping. We always went. We always had a ton of "kids" with us and we always had fun.

What did you do with a parent that you enjoyed as a kid?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Home Schooling

There has been some discussion about home schooling and home schooling strategy going around lately. As seen here.

So here's our take.


When we decided to home school last year it was for several reasons. The first and foremost was my son’s general health. Mentally and physically the stress of my rapidly deteriorating health and the general chaotic state of his public classroom where taking a huge toll on him. He was consumed with headaches and stomach pain. Getting through the day required muscle relaxers and bottles of "the pink stuff".

We did not blindly jump onto the home school bandwagon. We talked and discussed and dissected and talked to people who were and who had. We looked into options and plans. We also talked about what would be needed to keep him in public school.

Ultimately we took the plunge into life as a home schooling family. We actually left in the middle of a year. I would not recommend that. It worked out for us in the end but not without trials and tribulations. It’s hard to switch from a spoon fed classroom workload to a freer home schooling environment. It was hard for both Greg and I. I’m a little type A in that respect. I wanted ridged deskwork with times and timetables and do this exact and work on it until you have it correct and now now now now now!

This does not work with a child with stress related anxiety issues. All it amounted to was added stress to him and to me. Stress equals a sicker kid. And never let them tell you that they’ll get used to the stress and ‘get over it’. ‘Dealing’ with stress is a learning process much like learning to read. You have to learn to handle your stress load. In time, yes, you do learn to handle it and hopefully stop puking or stop your brain from trying bleed out your ears, however that takes time.

For the first few month of home school, and the last few months of 6th grade, we struggled to get our collective shit together. We had to learn what would work for us. We had to get a plan that would work with my job on the road and the amount of time we just aren’t home. Greg had to learn that he had to self-motivate to get this done. He couldn’t wait and cram everything into the night before his teacher was to arrive for him to turn in his work. It did not work for me to yell, stomp, demand, structure, or plan. Nor did it work for me not to structure and plan some. He had to fail a few times and turn in shoddy work to his teacher (We have a full time accredited teacher who works with us weekly.) who I had given free rein to bust his chops. He redid assignments that I had said were inadequate and he thought were ‘fine’. Our learning curve was a little like jumping off a cliff blindfolded and praying someone had put a net out. We got through the first months surprisingly scuff free. I felt Greg was getting a much firmer grasp on what was being taught in every subject. We could work at his pace whatever that might be. We adjusted his work to suit him as we went. We are terribly luck with the teacher we have. She caught on to Greg’s weaknesses without me having to point them out and pushed him to work harder to make up for them. Challenging him to prove her wrong and challenges he never backs down from.

We could have chosen to go back to public school this year after we had passed the hump with Greg’s and my illness. However, this is working so well for him I hate to break it. So we started off 7th grade home schooling again.

This year is so much different than last year. Greg doesn’t feel the need to test his teacher, either of us. He is almost totally self-motivated to do his own work without being reminded or asked. He is blowing through his science at a rate that even amazed his teacher and is totally enthralled in history. For the first time ever he said “I want to be a… when I grow up” and it wasn’t a spaceman or a bike rider. ;-) (It was a historian, btw.)

We do not have a schedule to our day. We don’t get up at a certain time and start work at a certain time. He is required by me to do school work every single day. He works mostly on days when I am working because he has little else to do. I don’t care what piece of work he does. He can do all his history, then all his math, or a little of each every day. I do have to remind him on “off” days that he needs to get work done. It’s easy to get caught up in running around and not take/leave time for schoolwork. I’m guilty of cramming too much into a week and not leaving him time for his work and actually having to stop, make time for him to stop, and take time.

It was especially hard when my dad was sick. Oh sure it’s easy to toss the books in the car and say you’re going to get to it. It’s different to pack those books from waiting room to waiting room and actually do the work.

So that’s how we do it. I’m not a very structured teacher. I’m not a lazy teacher either. Mostly just laid back. I have a student that works well that way. Where getting him to work on homework for public school was a nightmare in itself, this he just does without pushing. He’s responsible for his success and he wants to succeed on his own.

The only thing Greg asked was that I not be his sole teacher. We have the option of seeing a teacher as little as once a month. He is afraid (and probably totally correct) that I would pile the work on and all he would ever do was schoolwork. While I’d like to say, NO WAY, he’s right. I still want to do that now. This way he has a set minimum he has to turn in, unless he doesn’t get something and had a hard time working through it, or we needed to spend more time on a concept to really understand it. If that happens I go with him to his teacher meeting and tell her what we changed or did. That way we are both responsible.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I recently saw a leash (there all fixed ;-P) *nudge nudge* "somewhere" that reads "One of us is a bitch". Today I know which one that is. After spanking my puppy for not minding my son pipes up, as the dog sends me a scathing look, talking for the dog, "Well, one of us is a bitch."

Not funny.

Ok. Funny.

I'm cranky. This IS my happy face. Dammit.

Then to turn on my computer tonight to download my work for tomorrow and send my paperwork from last week... no internets to be found. WTH?

Hubby yanked out my phone cord from the house in his mad raking of the side yard. Then denied. And argued. And then yelled at me? Oh poor choice my dear when I'm on edge. I can yell louder, longer, and much more proficiently than you. Remember when you laughed about the neighbors girlfriend muttering around their house calling him names from within while you all stood in the driveway. They live 4 doors down. Bet they heard most of what I said. And *gasp* I did it while mostly not cussing. This is HUGE. I didn't want to teach the children next door anything new, because dude, their bedroom I could spit in.

We thought we lost two goats today. Turns out Greg is blind. Or one really fat white goat can blend into the dirt. Which ever you choose to believe.

We hauled hay in the break today. A few more months worth of really heavy hay. Poundage wise I should only have to feed one bale a feeding, too bad the flakes don't measure out right. It will be interesting to see how much they eat versus waste. That's always the challenge with new hay.

No other news. Work tomorrow in Arcata then in Fortuna on Tues. Another day another dollar, or so they say.